While it is generally acknowledged that orchid species rely on mycorrhizal fungi for completion of their life cycle, little is yet known about how mycorrhizal fungal diversity and community composition vary within and between closely related orchid taxa. In this study, we used 454 amplicon pyrosequencing to investigate variation in mycorrhizal communities between pure (allopatric) and mixed (sy...

The influence of the specific Descolea antarctica (Da) and the non-specific Pisolithus tinctorious (Pt) ectomycorrhizal fungi on some physiological leaf parameters of the Chilean evergreen Nothofagus dombeyi subjected to a low soil water potential (-1.6 to -1.9 MPa in a growth chamber for 35 days) and a high water potential (-0.07 to -0.09 MPa, control) was studied. Drought decreased the water ...

Excessive salt accumulation in soil is a major ecological and agronomical problem, especially in arid and semiarid areas. Excessive soil salinity affects the establishment, development and growth of plants, resulting in major losses of production. A pot experiment was set up to examine the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (Glomus etunicatum and Glomus versiforme) and salinity on the gro...

Mycorrhizal fungi and insects are important components of most ecosystems that are likely to interact with one another indirectly through a common host plant. In this paper, we review the literature examining the effects of insects on mycorrhizal fungi and the effects of mycorrhizal fungi on insects and show that both groups of organisms can indirectly and, occasionally directly, influence each...

The effect of root exudates from non-mycorrhizal and mycorrhizal cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) plants colonized by one of three arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Gigaspora rosea Nicolson & Schenck, Glomus intraradices Smith & Schenck, or Glomus mosseae (Nicolson & Gerdemann) Gerd. & Trappe) on hyphal growth of Gi. rosea and G. intraradices in axenic culture and on root colonization by G. mosseae in...

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As the diversity of plants increases in an ecosystem, so does resource competition for soil nutrients, a process that mycorrhizal fungi can mediate. The influence of mycorrhizal fungi on plant biodiversity likely depends on the strength of the symbiosis between the plant and fungi, the differential plant growth responses to mycorrhizal inoculation, and the transfer rate of nutrients from the fu...

Plant-mycorrhizal fungal interactions are ubiquitous in forest ecosystems. While ectomycorrhizal plants and their fungi generally dominate temperate forests, arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis is common in the tropics. In subtropical regions, however, ectomycorrhizal and arbuscular mycorrhizal plants co-occur at comparable abundances in single forests, presumably generating complex community stru...

Mycorrhizal status of the host plant is often ignored in studies on plant-herbivore interactions, but mycorrhizal colonization is known to induce many morphological, physiological, and biochemical changes in host plants, which in turn may alter plant quality as a host for insect herbivores. Both positive and negative effects of mycorrhizal colonization of the host plant on performance and densi...